Wireless digital networks, such as those operating to IEEE802.11 Ethernet standards, use wireless access nodes connected to controllers and provide a wide range of services to wireless clients, such as access to infrastructure devices and services such as printers and file servers, as well as to the greater Internet. In RF-dense environments like those found in corporate offices, it is common to have many devices, wireless access nodes and wireless clients both, operating in close proximity.
When devices operate in close proximity, both in terms of physical location and radio frequencies, opportunities for interference arise. Such interference can occur not only when devices operate on the same channel, but when devices operate on partially overlapping or adjacent channels. As an example, in the U.S. 2.4 GHz ISM band, the three non-overlapping channels are 1, 6, and 11. Channels 1 and 3, for example, partially overlap. Channels 1 and 6 are adjacent, but they can still interfere with each other depending on the proximity of the devices and strength of transmissions. This 2.4 GHz band is also shared with services such as Bluetooth, wireless telephones, microwave ovens, and other devices which intentionally or unintentionally radiate RF energy.
The design of IEEE802.11 protocols alleviates these problems to a certain degree by implementing carrier sense and collision avoidance; before a device transmits on a channel, it first listens for activity. If it detects activity on the channel, it backs off for a minimum predetermined time or a randomly chosen time within a predetermined range, and checks again. In this “carrier sense” approach, the device senses for energy and carrier at the transmitter and defers the transmission if energy or carrier is detected, and it does not have the necessary intelligence to determine if the detected energy or carrier would actually interfere with its own transmission and vice versa.
It is known to the art that the “interference range” of a device is commonly greater than the “communications range,” that is, a device is capable of causing interference to other devices at greater distances than it is capable of establishing communications.
What is needed is a better method of operating in RF environments.